Advice: hitting the ground running, or biting off more than I can chew?

[cupofjoe]

I'm curious which cliche the people on this board might apply to my plans.

Background: I'm a brand new PADI OW diver (certified a few months ago), switching to UTD with Essentials of Rec next month (already did ESM and have my own gear).

I've got a trip planned to La Jolla in August, and am in touch with an instructor out there about doing some diving. Some of the options are > 60' and some are night dives. Practically speaking, I can at least cram in a PADI AOW class in July, but basically we're talking about some of my very first ocean dives (I doubt I'll be able to make any between now and then) being shore entry, deep, and/or at night, all at the same time.

So - thoughts? I'm especially eager to hear from folks who know the dive sites out there, for example the La Jolla Shores North and South walls.

 

[RainPilot]

I don't know those sites, but the phrase "cramming in a course" always sounds alarm bells in my head...

If you are already doing Essentials, is there any way your schedule will let you add in Rec 2? It will be a lot smoother of a transition.

Otherwise there are ways of doing those dives as Adventure Dives which require you to do the briefings appropriate to those dives beforehand, these can be credited toward the full AOW later. @wetb4igetinthewater would know better than me, Im not totally hip to the PADI Kool Aid flavors

 

[TMHeimer]

I have not dived the West Coast, but have heard conditions like surf, surge & viz can vary a lot from place to place and day to day. There is a thread in the New Divers forum "First OW dives--so disappointed" you may check out. It's possible Cal. may not be the best place for dive #1, but you can get some local input from the California subforum under USA.

 

[runsongas]

you should get some ocean dives in before you start the class. showing up without some familiarity with ocean diving and also the gear you plan to use may overwhelm you and cause you to struggle with the class.

 

[Diver0001]

I would advise to get certified to do what you want to do before you leave on vacation. Personally I don't think that the time to take a diving course is when you are on a diving vacation!

As for UTD. That's a bit of an allergy for me. You could certainly do worse than UTD in terms of the raw skills you will learn but in my opinion it's a bit of a cult and if you progress to non-trivial technical diving you'll probably need to "un-cult-ify" yourself in the future. Some of that will require retraining in things that UTD teaches that are a decade or more out of date (and potentially risky).

Up to you, I guess.

R..

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@cupofjoe

I typically advise doing training closer to home, unless one is going on a trip where they are just focused on diving. As Brendon said "cramming" a course does raise alarm bells. Why do you want AOW? Just for the certification to dive deeper? What was your OW class like? Did you perform all underwater skills midwater and neutrally buoyant? Or were you on your knees? If the latter, I'd be concerned if you rush through AOW and then jump out into the ocean at night in surge. That is just a recipe to disaster. Honestly, I wouldn't want to even be present at such a dive.

Given the surge that exists in California, I would recommend more training at home, and doing some ocean diving on the east coast.

With regards to GUE/UTD/ISE, I will give you the same advise as was given to me when I took GUE fundies "You don't have to drink the Kool Aid, just focus on the skills." And this was excellent advise as I don't subscribe to all the concepts embraced by GUE. And that's fine. But I am pursuing more training with the organization, as I am getting a dramatic improvement in skills that I carry over to my own teaching.

 

[cupofjoe]

Thanks for all the responses & advice. Very useful so far.

@RainPilot, I'm definitely planning to do Rec 2 also. It may not work schedule-wise prior to the trip, but I know that PADI AOW will work, based on course schedules of dive shops in the area. Separate question is whether there's any point to doing PADI AOW if I'm going to do Rec 2. Maybe not. The idea behind doing AOW prior to the trip was to at least get the *first* time out of the way w/respect to night & deeper dives, make sure I can equalize, etc., but I certainly don't confuse that with the kind of knowledge I'll have after doing 20 or 50 or 100 of them.

@wetb4igetinthewater, I'm doing Essentials before the trip, not during it (and doing extra practice in the pool outside the course), so hopefully I'll learn to do the skills in a nice proper body position with neutral buoyancy, which was not, as you might guess, what happened in my OW course.

Re: UTD, GUE doesn't have instructors in my area and UTD does. I wanted to do something more demanding than the PADI courses, and also like the general systems/rigor that both GUE and UTD seem to bring to the sport. I've spent more time than I probably needed to wading through threads debating the finer points of these two in particular. I expect that as my diving progresses, I'll start getting a better idea of which elements of each are the best fit for the kind of diving I'm doing.

 

[The Chairman]

The paths to becoming an excellent diver vary from person to person. You, and only you can decide precisely what is right for you. Personally, I believe most people gather too many certs and not enough experience for the training in the certs to really be meaningful. Try to perfect the skills you garner from each class before you add to your skill set. It's just as important to keep your skills in context as it is to know how to do them.

 

[scubadada]

The paths to becoming an excellent diver vary from person to person. You, and only you can decide precisely what is right for you. Personally, I believe most people gather too many certs and not enough experience for the training in the certs to really be meaningful. Try to perfect the skills you garner from each class before you add to your skill set. It's just as important to keep your skills in context as it is to know how to do them.

Some divers appear to be in a hurry to earn their credentials. I got nitrox certified at about 40 dives, of course this was back in 2002. I did not do AOW until about 80 dives and Rescue at about 120 dives. It worked well for me, I appreciated and learned from my additional training, 1200 dives later, I still think so

 

[HantsDiver]

Just do the AOW as and when you can. I wouldn't sweat it. Diving in the ocean isn't as scary as some people are making out. I regularly dive in far worst conditions then you will experience and have a great time. AOW is experiencing 5 different types of diving and seeing if they are for you. It's meant to be 5 glorified fun dives. Nothing more and nothing less.

I'd also just trust the instructor. It's their judgment call. No one on the internet is in a better position than them.

And don't stress the neutral buoyancy and trim stuff. In openwater, it's a nice party trick but not the most important thing in the world. And the course might make you better anyway. As you develop and dive more it will happen. Diving with more experienced people will help. It's become a big thing on the internet as a marketing ploy - the reality is in open water is generally doesn't matter at all.